


held like truth, in plainest sight

by jazzfic



Category: Star Trek: Picard
Genre: Crew as Family, F/M, Post-Season/Series 01, background shenanigans involving holograms, the ship as a metaphor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-03 10:00:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24469150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jazzfic/pseuds/jazzfic
Summary: How Cris Rios learns that hiding is a whole lot better when you're not alone.
Relationships: Agnes Jurati/Cristóbal Rios
Comments: 7
Kudos: 29





	held like truth, in plainest sight

**Author's Note:**

> For everyone who loves this fandom, thank you.

Being a ship of mere modest size, to the layperson wanting to hole up away from the world, la Sirena offered few true hiding places. It required time and observance, the pursuance of a lived-in experience, to really get to know the wheres and hows of her. 

Even so, some not insignificant level of creativity was required if one wanted to truly escape the enforced horrors of solitude. Cris Rios had in his years here employed almost all of them, with varying degrees of success: no matter what he did it seemed that holographic eyes had ways of seeing through every physical barrier, from rope netting to titanium, to his own forsaken silence. Fortunately he still had enough of a sense of humour to wallow in, if not appreciate, the irony that all he was trying to do was hide from himself. 

Raffi didn’t count. She knew him too well, there was no point trying anything beyond the adolescent satisfaction which came from barricading himself in his quarters. But an actual crew, made not of projections but of real flesh and blood (and Borg implants, and synth schematics, or a ghost upon a gollum... don’t think on it too hard or you’ll wreck yourself, he'd thought, more than once), well, that was another thing entirely. 

Today, Rios wasn’t trying to hide, but he damned near wanted to. Having seen off the away party to the planet below, the ship had fallen back into familiar, happy silence, in which he was all but ready to fall asleep. Or, at least, fall into a daydream that involved as few voices as possible. (The party being Picard and Seven, with a small cohort of Elnor and Soji in tow – who, even as the transporter had encircled them, had been talking in increasingly high pitched levels of excitement about how the marketplace they were going to visit had three hundred vendors! A large portion of which dealt in small and fluffy creatures! This particular conversational thread wasn’t new, in fact it had occupied mealtime discussion for nearly two days now, and at some point, he didn’t know when but possibly in the first ten minutes following the admiral’s call to his contact if he were honest, Rios had tuned out. And now, blessed relief, and peace prevailing, they were gone and could have their fill of cute critters. 

He selectively chose not to ponder on what they would bring back as souvenirs, or even worse, potential adoptees. He should probably warn the EHH. Maybe. The idea of the Steward worrying his perfectly pressed hair into a fret over having to deal with shedding fur brought a glimmer of mean satisfaction which lasted all of five seconds until Rios realised he was supposed to be as intolerable to animals as that fussy hologram. Well, so be it. He could be as contrary as any of them.) 

When he reached the empty bridge he stopped, took a breath, and held it. He held it for as long as he could, before exhaling slowly. The thought of ginger stripes, a sweetly purring cat – those he could take or leave – but the prettiest smile he’d maybe ever known was there and was here still, and he wasn’t too proud to acknowledge how it drowned out all other anxieties. There were some good things about this new, messy now.

A small impulse to be reckless pricked at his skin. He went to tap his commbadge when something caught his eye, and he paused, crouched down a little, and said, “Agnes?” 

Below the forward consoles, in the short alcove cut into the nose of the bridge, half of a blonde head appeared in profile. “Um, hi?”

“What are you doing down there?”

“Hiding.”

“I thought...” He paused with a smile, mostly for himself. Well, perhaps he knew Sirena not so well after all. “You know, there are better places for that. You can’t possibly be comfortable.”

A slow blink was all he got in return, bright eyes pulling him in. “Come see for yourself.”

Rios hesitated. Somewhere in the bowels of the ship, Raffi was nestled in her comfort zone with a pot of coffee and a dataset hacked very innocently and very recently by their resident synth. He had also earlier spotted the lower half of Ian beneath one of the diagnostics beds in sickbay, which in turn meant the EMH had activated in supervisory mode. The whereabouts of the other holograms, he didn’t know. Usually if he didn’t see them, he didn’t care, and that was where things ended, but right now... 

Presumptions be damned. He stepped carefully around the navigation console. First to appear in his line of sight were a pair of small boots, neatly crossed. Then the bottom half of a utilitarian jumpsuit, navy blue and streaked with dust. His eyes tracked up slowly, following the zipper to where it stopped in a low vee at her throat, to pale cheeks and lips turned up in a shy grin. 

“Hi,” Agnes said, again. 

The space was cramped. His back and knees were going to protest badly, he knew, but Rios sat anyway, folding his legs into an awkward cross knot as she scooted a few inches over. Pain could take him later, he decided. He would be glad of it. Let it drown him, if he could have this.

Back to the solid console, he pulled an arm around her shoulders, touching the ends of her curls gently. “You know, I’m meant to be the solitary soul on this ship.” 

“Mm, alliteration.” She smiled, only half mockingly. “I’m impressed. What else have you got?”

“Sweetness, sated, sublime...” He kissed the space beneath her ear, pitching his voice low.

A chuckle ran through her and he pulled away. “Stop, that’s terrible.” She rested her head against him, her fingers playing with the buttons at his collar. “Can you see it?” Agnes asked, after a moment.

“What?”

“Up there, look.”

From this position on the floor the view outside was like a high dome, catching the shape of the single moon as it cast a half crescent dip across the planetary rings. Rios would never had noticed it, he realised, if he’d been sitting in the captain’s chair. Slumped, distracted with the minutiae of the controls, lost in the hard task of keeping still. He was never good with stopping, or waiting, or being beheld by something he had no control over. Better to go, go, always forward, better to run. Stopping meant time where he itched to pick at wounds, curse at Raffi, to tear pieces in the holos where he didn’t have the courage to do it to himself. 

“I see it,” he said. “It’s beautiful.”

Hiding was lonely. Or, more truthfully, it had been. With her, it was rest. He didn’t feel that impulse now, only something uncurling in his chest, a breath let out. Six months had passed and not one day did he feel the need to move on and settle accounts. He didn’t want to drop the admiral back in his estate, nor Seven to the Fenris outpost he knew was logged in the nav array. They kept finding ways to meander in this direction or that, for places to visit which would enrich Soji’s humanity or Elnor’s independence. Picard was all of a sudden recalling friends who needed helping, claiming the vigour of a new body which needed mental and physical stimulation, and what was the harm in taking a few odd jobs along the way if it meant new parts for Ian, or new star charts for Enoch? Emil and Agnes were mending the harms once done. Raffi, his dear Raf, had new love.

Rios closed his eyes. He touched his forehead to Agnes, wanting to confess everything, thank her for the ways she humbled him, outsmarted him. He didn’t have the words. None of that mattered. She was well, and here. If he made her laugh, or sigh, if he caught her breath quickening in the dark, if he found her name on his lips, so be it all, _I am happy_ , he thought. That was enough.

“Cris.”

Agnes was regarding him with concern and a tiny smile. “You’re going to feel terrible sitting like that for too long. Come on.” She patted his knee.

“I’m good,” he murmured. He really was.

There was a thump in the distance, making them both jump, followed by footsteps tripping across the flooring. “Rios! Hey, Rios!”

With a groan he twisted around, letting go of the kiss he’d been working towards. “Shit...”

Raffi’s voice continued, getting louder as she approached the bridge. “So, it could be nothing, just a little chattering I overheard while digging in the comms traffic, but you know me, I’m like honey to conspiracy flies, and... Rios? Where the hell are you hiding now?”

Agnes was shaking with laughter, her fingers digging into his side. He patted her hand unhelpfully and chanced a look beneath the navigational chair, spotting Raffi’s legs a few feet away. The window with which to extract themselves unseen was quickly disappearing, if not swept away already. 

Well, all he had left was his dignity. And besides, he wasn’t alone now. He tugged at Agnes, and they clambered upright. 

Raffi grinned, watching this with folded arms. “Yeah,” she said softly. “Like I couldn’t see the pair of you from the other end of the ship...” She bored a knowing look at Rios, then nodded at Agnes. “Look, I actually came here for a reason. Two so called individuals with your face on them have managed to work themselves into a little hologrammatic flap down in sickbay. It’s like passive aggressiveness turned into a cage fight and someone needs to butt in before they implode, and that someone isn’t me.” With that she turned and walked off, long shawl flapping behind her, and threw over one shoulder, “That is, if you can pull yourselves away from your canoodling session.”

“Hey,” he said, as Raffi disappeared down the stairs. His voice trailed off a little. “That’s unfair, we weren’t even making out.”

A long pause followed this statement, filled with a slight zipping noise as Agnes neatened the top half of her suit. She looked up at him innocently, eyes bright. “Want to?” she asked.

Rios covered her hands as she wrapped them around his waist. He dipped his head, slowly, following the curve of her lips as she parted them fractionally. “I really, really do...” A breath away he stopped. “But, I should go. Sorry.”

“Okay, well, me too. I told Soji I’d be available about now if she wanted to check in, anyway. You need any help?”

He shook his head, amused at the contradictory words. She would do that, too, he was sure of it. Whether it be hidden, or held like truth opened up, the thing they were each of them working towards. She would be there for all of them at once if she could. 

Agnes gave a small wave from her hip, a flutter of her fingers and a sweetness in her face which almost, almost had Rios spinning back and pulling her to him. He had a feeling she may have been thinking the same. 

A brief pause held them still as they caught each other’s smile, then in a duel step they parted ways, their briefs understood, to mend the ship.


End file.
